There is No Hope
by Chromesdddm
Summary: They are more dangerous than any animal. They kill without thinking twice. Their disease had spread like wildfire. Who are these things you may ask? They are zombies!
1. Don't Answer The Door!

Even though those soulless, and murderous zombies hadn't appeared yet, the world was still falling apart at the seams. People, even in Buckville, Tennessee, were going crazy because of the whole "2012 apocalypse prediction". Thousands of people screamed out in the streets for people to repent, and yet no one listened. I knew that the place where I use to hang out as a kid had been burnt down by protesters. Even thinking about old Pete's Pastry Factory brought back the sweet smell of cherry pie and moist cheesecake.

The telephone started to ring. I didn't even realize I was watching TV until the ringing sound which brought me out of my thoughts of Pete's Pastry Factory once again. I got up out of my old recliner rather quick. My feet had fallen asleep, and I felt a little dizzy because I got up too fast. I reached for the phone and looked at the caller I.D. It was my sister, Lily. I sighed and pressed the talk button.

"Hello?" I said even though I already knew who it was. It was just a basic reaction.

"Hey, Ben, what are you doing?" Lillian asked me in a happy tone.

"Nothing, I guess. I bet people going crazy up in New York."

"Ya, you wouldn't believe how much things have changed over the past week." she answer suddenly switched towards a sad tone.

A thud came from my door, all of the sudden. _Thank The Lord, for that miracle, _I thought as I told Lily I had to go. Me and Lily didn't grow up close. With a 14 year age gap, it was difficult to be as close as I should have.

From inside, I could hear yelling and screaming, thinking that it was just protesters. They weren't. I tossed the phone on my recliner, and answered the door, thinking it may have been my next door neighbor trying to warn me. It wasn't.

A pale man with blood smeared over his mouth, and jagged teeth looked at me with a blank stare. His breathing was heavy and fast-paced. The man lunged at me, and grabbed me by my head. Both me and the man fell onto my glass coffee table, and busted it. Shrapnels of glass went into my back. The zombie's mouth reached for my neck but I was able to hold him back with my arm. A large piece of glass sat about 2 and a half feet to my left. I stretched my arm out for it, but it was just a little too far away. The man's saliva splashed in my face as he screeched for my blood. I was able to scoot far enough to grasp the piece of glass in my hand and jab it into the zombie's temple. The man's eyes rolled into the back of his head and died.

I pushed him off of me as I got back to my feet. Outside of my open door, ten of those crazy zombies seemed to almost perch themselves on top of other corpses and began to eat. I gasped when two of the ten zombies veered their rotting heads toward me. I wanted to get the phone and call 911, but the two zombies were already in full dash at my house. I rushed to the door, closed it, and locked it just in time with my bloody hands.

I went over to my kitchen and took a big butcher knife out of my drawer. Everything in my body seemed to freeze when I saw a couple of zombies staring at me through my window.

I ran into my garage, and got inside my pickup truck. Faintly, I could hear the noise of breaking glass coming from my living room. The zombies had broken into my home. I started up the truck, put it into reverse and swiftly drove out of my driveway.

It felt like I ran over a deer or something, but it was just dead bodies lying face down at the end of my driveway, with their rotting flesh and thick blood stretched out every which way. I drove as fast as I could down the road. One zombie woman stood fearlessly in front of my truck. At the last second, she jumped up onto the hood. Her feet made a loud thud against the metal. I swerved from left to right, trying to get her off. She blocked my vision. I didn't know it but I was heading straight toward a pond that was near my local neighborhood.

My truck went down a small hill, and the woman buckled up and down. She fell off of my truck right before it hit the water. The woman's head went under my front tires and squashed her head down. I tried to open up my door when the water level came up to about my door handle. It was very difficult to push open the door with all of that water pressure pushing the door closed. I grunted and strained , but I was able to get it open. My feet could barely touch the ground in the pond. When I looked round two zombie children, roughly 8 or 9 years old, dashed down the grassy hill, towards me. The back end of my truck still stuck about a foot out of the water. I got on top of the truck and got the butcher knife out of my pocket. The kids tried to swim towards me, but couldn't. They were drowning. Their mouths were wide open with their teeth ready to chomp down on me, but they never made it. They died.

I jumped down off of my truck and into the water. The water came up to my armpits. I gripped my large knife tightly as I passed the dead bodies of children floating in the water. I felt so sick going back up that grassy hill that I almost threw up.

Screams could be heard far off into the distance. Those screams of pain were echoing from the city where many people were probably trying to fight the zombies. I peaked over the top of the hill with my knife still in hand. Two zombies slowly trudged towards me, but only came in my direction because they must have seen my car go into the pond. I closed my eyes for a second, and thought about how I could die, and be eaten to death. But I opened my eyes suddenly when I heard footsteps coming from behind me. I twisted my body around and saw the woman I thought I had killed coming up the small hill. I jumped and tackled her to the ground. Her head was already flattened yet she was still alive. I plunged my knife into her heart and she died.

The two zombies saw me and came to me from behind. I punched the one on my left, and stabbed the one on the right. The left one stumbled for a moment and then came back at me with even more force and anger. I cut off his head. Blood splattered on my clothes. I went up to the other zombie, who was wheezing and moaning in pain, but still wanted to kill me. So I put him out of his misery.


	2. The Brawl at McDonalds

Slowly, I slid through the backyards of some fenced-in, downtown houses. Trying to find any sign of peaceful life, I peaked through windows only to find either the dead, or the living dead. I hopped over a low metal fence as quietly as possible. Praying that the dead would not find me.

Tired and dizzy, I looked around to see if any zombies were around. The coast was clear, so I plopped down on a lawn chair which sat on the back porch of someone's house. I laid there and wondered, _Can the blood on my shirt attract zombies? Like sharks? _After that thought zoomed through my head along with one million other things, I took off my shirt and tossed it onto the roof. The sun was baking me anyway. With a cool breeze and the warm air, I felt pretty weak and sleepy. _Only for a second. I'll rest only for a second, _I thought before I closed my eyes, and drifted to sleep.

I woke up to a strange sound. Moaning…from a zombie that was trudging nearby. I tried to find my knife, quickly but I couldn't find it anywhere. The sun had set, but the streetlights helped me make out most things. On, the other side of the metal fence, an old woman with murder in her eyes, was staring me down. She was trying to find a way around the fence, but she couldn't. The old woman hissed and growled at me. Blood was on the collar of her tattered nightgown. I could tell that she had her midnight snack. I got out of the chair and folded it up. She was glaring at me with her red teeth showing when I came over to her. With the lawn chair tightly grasped in my hands, I whacked her across the head. One strike was enough for her to topple over. Her breathes started to get faster, and then slower. Then, eventually, I did not hear anything. The old woman was dead.

Traveling the streets at nighttime was a dangerous thing already. With zombies, the trek felt even more so. I could not find my knife when I tried to search for it. I knew that there was not enough light to search for it. It would only be a barrier in my journey to find other survivors (if any were still around).

With the rising sun behind them, the gray clouds moved across the sky. I could see smoke just as I entered the city limits. My stomach was in knots for two reasons: The first being that I hadn't eaten in over 18 hours. The second reason was because I had a strange feeling that I was being watched.

The highways were devoid of life and happiness. Blood dripped down half of the cars, yet not one dead body was to be seen. The other half of the cars had a dozen bullet shots through them. Up ahead a quarter mile, was a McDonalds. I would have chuckled if I saw any zombies inside of a McDonalds restaurant, but knowing that my life was at risk, I kept a straight face.

In the parking lot, I looked inside of the glass windows to see if anything was in there. The coast was clear yet again, but beside me, I could hear a voice coming from inside of the outside, gated play area. The voice was from a small kid who looked about 9 or 10 years old. He was hiding in a yellow slide that was connected to a multi-colored castle. He was looking at me with a fear in his eyes.

He was pointing at me, but I didn't know why until he whispered, "Behind you."

When I jerked my head around, a thin, pale zombie was running at me. I was too far away from the gated play area, so I leapt on top of a silver Honda Accord with the key still in the ignition, and tried to kick my way down through the sunroof. When I kicked it twice I could make out a crack in the glass. The next thing I knew, the zombie was jumping onto the car and eat me. The boy screamed, and hid inside of the slide. I grabbed the zombie by the throat while he gnashed his teeth at me. I slung him down to the ground with one swift motion. His head knocked against the sunroof. His head was able to bust a 3 inch hole in the glass. He was momentarily stunned and confused. I beat him across his face and threw him off of the car. I used my bare hands to rip apart the 3 inch hole and enlarge it. The skinny zombie on the ground stumbled around , but couldn't regain focus. Far away, three more zombies came at me. I slid in through the sunroof and tried to crank up the car. It(conveniently) would not crank. I turned around to see one zombies claw at the window next to me, one was trying to get in through the hole I made in the roof, but he was too fat, and the last one jumped on the hood of the Honda and tried to break the wind shield. I was trapped.

The kid's scream could be heard above the zombies' monstrous growls. They veered their necks and spread out to locate the noise. I carefully opened the passenger side door, and slid out of the door so that the three zombies that were on the other side, could not see me. They couldn't find the kid even though I knew exactly where he was. He was still hiding in the yellow slide. I crouched down to the ground and peeped over the hood to see the kid still watching me. I signaled for him to be quiet, so he did. With the zombies heads turned the opposite way from me, I made a mad dash towards the front entrance. The zombies saw me run in, so they came after me. I knocked a trashcan in front of the double doors. The pale and green zombies used their shoulders to try and break down the door, but I countered by stacking all of the chairs on the trashcan until they could not see me through the glass anymore. After five or so minutes, they stopped. I saw three or four dead bodies inside of the restaurant. They were not the living dead. I saw the doors that led out to the play area. I went through them and tried immediately to find the yellow slide.

At the slide, I found him. His hair was blonde and his eyes were a light shade of blue. His clothes were bloodstained, and his nose was red from crying so much. The boy looked up at me.

"Are you going to eat me?" he asked me.

"No, I'm not one of those people."

"What's going on out there?"

"I don't know, but all I do know is that we have to stay hidden. Are your parents still alive, kid?"

"They are in there." He was pointing into McDonalds at the bodies that were sprawled out across the tables with bite marks all over them.

"Don't you worry, is your name anyway?"

"Melvin. How about you?"

"Ben." I answered.

He wrapped his little arms around me, held onto me tight, and cried. Even though he didn't know me, we both had one thing in common: Sadness.


	3. The Old Man Tells His Story

After I found Melvin, I disposed of the dead bodies by shutting them in the freezer in the back. I did not want the kid to see them anymore.

Melvin and me sat down at one of the restaurant booths, and watched the rain pour down outside. He was watching the droplets on the yellow slide, where he had been hiding, but I was searching the horizon for any zombies. I took a deep sigh while burying my head in my palms. The kid looked back at me and touched my shirt sleeve (a plain white T-shirt I got from one of the dead bodies). I picked my head up to look at him.

"It'll be all right." he told me.

We both looked outside at about the same time. The sun was setting, but forming a faint silhouette in the distance, was a man. _Is he undead or alive? _I thought. I told the boy to hide up under the table, and he obeyed. The man was dragging his feet across the pavement of the road. _A zombie!_

As the man came closer, I could see that he was only weak, and not a zombie. An old, black man in his late 50s wearing a suit and tie. He was in the parking lot and still dragging his feet. I looked around to see if those three zombies who tried to attack were around. They weren't. That was a reason to disassemble the stack of chairs in front of the door. The man stood behind the entrance with a blank expression on his face. Melvin helped me. We sat the chairs aside, and opened up the door to him.

The man came in without a care in the world. He didn't say a word until he sat at down at the nearest booth. Me and Melvin looked at one another and sat across from him. He slid off the first layer of his light tan suit and relaxed. The black man did not even bother to look at us.

"Where you'll from?" he asked as with his eyes closed.

"I live right here in Buckville. Melvin, here, told me that he lives up in Milton." I responded.

"So you aren't that boy's father?" he asked me with intrigue.

"No. I met him a couple of hours ago."

Later on that night, Melvin yawned and was getting sleepy. I couldn't find him any blanket, so me and the other man put two tables together. The black man put the first layer of his suit on the table. The boy slept on that. He hadn't slept since the night before the zombie attack.

Me and the man took a walk around McDonalds. He told me that his name didn't matter when he felt death at his doorstep. We both wanted to talk, but didn't know where to start.

I stopped for a second, and then whispered so I would not wake Melvin up, "What do you know about this thing that's going around?"

"Not much. I was preaching a message on repentance an the 2012 phenomenon when all of the sudden, one of those things came bustin' in and started biting folks. Only by the power of God was I able to get away."

"What happened after that?"

"I led some of the injured down into a nearby wheat field, and crouched down. When they died…however…they-" The man stopped as if he had a lump in his throat.

"What? What happened when they died?"

The black man looked up at me, and said, "They didn't stay dead, son, they came back to life. I thought it was a miracle, but then one of them growled at me, and tried to nip at me. All of the injured turned into zombies-like people. I hid from them in the vast fields of wheat. They left. I had my cell phone with me, and started getting calls from other spiritual advisers that the same thing was happening to them in places like Chicago, Philly, New York-"

My heart skipped a beat. I interrupted him. "New York?"

"Ya, son, that place was hit pretty bad. Why?"

"My sister was up in New York to care for our sick mother. Our mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer not too long ago."

The black man sighed put his hand on my shoulder. "Then they are probably dead or undead by now. I'm sorry for your loss."

I shrugged his hand off of my shoulder in anger, and walked off. I knew deep down in my heart that they were still alive. Both of them.

I paced around behind the counter of the restaurant. Thinking of my family and all that they were probably going through. My thoughts were shattered when I heard a banging sound coming from the freezer. The bang was loud enough to wake up Melvin. The old man didn't hear a thing. Melvin got up and came over to me, and held his breath. We were side by side, listening for any other noises. The only sound I could hear was the slight pitter-patter of the rain. BOOM! Even the old man heard that one. He ran over to me as fast as an old man can. All three of us walked quietly to the freezer.

"Who did you put in there?" the old man asked me.

"The dead."

"Well I guess they aren't dead anymore."

I went towards the door, trying not to think about the zombie I knew was certainly behind it. I looked over onto one of the metal counters beside me. A knife was on the table. I heard the sound of someone cocking back a gun. When I turned around, I saw the old man with a handgun, pointing it at the main entrance. _He must've had that in his suit somewhere, _I thought.

"You forgot to block up the doors. We have company." he told me.

When I looked to see what he was talking about, an army of zombies came slowly towards the double doors. They had found us.


	4. Guns and Guilt

The little boy, Melvin, ran under a table and hid. Dozens of zombies sprinted through the front entrance, with hungry mouths wide open for attack. The old man gritted his teeth and fired shots which echoed inside of McDonalds. I saw four or five zombies have their brains blown out, and fall to the floor instantly. One of them came for Melvin, but I took the knife that was in my hand and shoved into the back of it's skull. The next thing I knew, a zombie rapped his arms around my neck when I wasn't looking. I twisted around, trying to throw him off. The zombie tightened his grip around my neck and lunged in to bite my neck. I purposefully fell on my back to startle him. It worked. I got him off and stabbed him while he was still lying on the floor.

"You okay, son?" the old man yelled from two feet away.

"Yes, I'm all right."

A zombie woman flew in from behind the old man and made him fall. She had him pinned to the ground. The old man grunted trying to find his gone. It was spinning across the floor towards Melvin. The man held the zombie off with his forearm on her collarbone. She was so close, her saliva ran onto his face. Melvin picked up the gun.

I yelled to him, "Give me the gun."

He hesitated with the gun. Melvin was frozen in place under the table.

"Hurry, kid, throw the gun!" the old man yelled before the zombie bit his nose.

Melvin started to cry. I took the gun from him and shot the zombie woman in the head. She rolled off of him. The black man touched his nose to find that it was bleeding. All of the zombies were dead from what we could see. _More zombies might come in at any time, _I thought while I helped up the old man. He looked into my eyes, and we both knew that he was going to turn into a zombie eventually.

"Why didn't you through the gun when we told you to, kid! You know what's gonna happen to me because of you!" the old man growled.

I couldn't blame Melvin for thinking twice about the gun. In a life or death situation, it could be hard on a little kid. Melvin ran into a bathroom and cried. The old man sighed. He was muttering about how angry he was. It was a good thing that I was the one with the gun.

"You shouldn't be so hard on Melvin. He _is _just a boy." I told him.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to throw a gun. I am pretty much dead already…So shoot me."

I jumped back. "What?"

"You know what I said. I told you to shoot me. I pray that I will be forgiven of my sins."

"No, I can't do that."

I could feel the tension in the room. It was overwhelming. I would never shoot an old man (that was still living). I ignored the sinister glares that he was giving me. No matter how much he would ask, I would not shoot him.

I went to the bathroom to check on Melvin. He was feeling extreme guilt about the incident. His face was pale and his eyes were like glass, reflecting the water in his eyes. He was sitting on top of the counter with a tissue in his hand. I came over and sat next to him.

"It was my fault, wasn't it?", the boy asked.

"No. The only thing that you should blame are those zombies. Come on, let's get out of here."

"Okay."

With that, we walked out of the bathroom. The old man was nowhere to be found when we got out. Both me and the boy looked around for him. I was the one that saw his body in the kitchen. He was dead, with blood still coming out of his nose, and all over the floor. I kept the boy from seeing him.

"We have to leave. If we don't, bad things will happen." I told Melvin.

"But where will we go?"

"I'm not sure. We just have to run and never stop."

The boy agreed so he got some hamburger buns and patties for the long road ahead and put them in Melvin's book bag which was still in the yellow slide. I took a couple of bites myself. I gave Melvin the top layer of the old man's suit that he slept on because it was raining even harder and I was going to use that as an umbrella. I told him that we could travel when it is dark outside so that the zombies will not find easily. The boy looked at the freezer and must have thought about his mother and father that were zombiefied. The banging sound was drowned out by the rain, but we could tell the zombies were still walking around in there.

Right before Melvin and me left McDonalds, I heard the sound of groaning. Melvin screamed all of the sudden. I turned around to see the old man charging at us, with blood still coming out of his nose. He was a zombie! It would take too long to get out the gun I had in the book bag, so I took off the backpack, and used one of the straps to choke the old man. Suffocating a zombie in much harder than I thought it would. The old man struggled and used his fingernails to reach behind him and swipe at my face. I couldn't hold on any longer. The old man was stronger than I thought he would be. I used the last of my strength to hold on to the strap. The old man saw Melvin standing at the glass doors and tried to get to him. That enough was my motivation to end this fight quickly. I jerked him back towards me, and slammed him to the ground. I was on top of him while he was lying on his belly. He died shortly after I had him on the ground.

Melvin was scared out of his mind. I had already killed the man yet I felt as if I couldn't let go of the strap. After taking a deep breath, I got up off of the man, and put the backpack on my shoulders. It was time to leave. Melvin took a long look at the old man and walked out of the McDonalds, traumatized. I wasn't far off from having an emotional breakdown myself. I followed the boy.

I put the coat over Melvin's head as we walked into the parking lot. The streetlights were on. The rain helped me snap out of my somewhat dazed state of mind.

"Where do we go from here?" Melvin said quietly.

"North. To New York."

"Why there?"

"I got some family up there. It may be dangerous though."

"Will we see any other people like us? Living people?" Melvin asked curiously.

"I sure hope so, kid." I said softly.


	5. At the Gas Station

Melvin and me had been traveling north on an abandoned highway for three days until we found another zombie. Fortunately, the zombie did not see us because we were hiding in an old van. I thought about what it might be like to be one solitary zombie. It figured that it must get lonesome from time to time, but I knew that thought was wrong. They were heartless killers who wanted nothing but blood, and that was our current world…or at least… what was left of it.

Traveling further down the road, right before sunset that day, we found an old gas station. It wasn't much but it would provide us with some shelter. I switched on the lights to the store. Melvin went towards the back of the store and found a couple of sodas for the both of us. He gave me one Mt. Dew and a Sprite. I put the Sprite in my backpack and drank the other one. The backpack still brought back the haunting memories of me strangling the old man. Melvin sat on top of the counter and drank whatever drink he got.

"Is it good?" I asked.

"Yes sir, it's good."

It felt a little awkward for Melvin to refer to me as 'sir', so I told him to just call me Ben.

Melvin was feeling sleepy so I told him that he could sleep wherever he wanted. I turned off the light and laid down behind the counter. The boy laid down beside me. I felt bad that Melvin had to sleep on the cold, hard floor. So did I, but I could handle it. Melvin started to snore within the first few minutes. I, however, couldn't sleep one bit. I tried to shut my eyes, but they would just snap open again with even the quietest of noises. Probably because I was paranoid. But is it really paranoia when your feeling grow beyond suspicion, and into reality? I slowly closed my eyes for just a moment and then the next thing I knew…

My dream that night was of my mother and my sister. Both of them were in the hospital where my mother was being held at. They were just silhouettes at the end of a long corridor. The only light source was the overhead light which flickered on and off. My family stood still. They stood so still and silent that it made me feel scared.

I called out to them, "Mom, it's me, Ben! Lily, are you alright?"

Still no reply. I knew that I was in a nightmare, but I also thought that maybe seeing their faces would turn this thick, dark atmosphere into something good. I ran towards them, but time seemed to slow down in that instant. The lights turned off just as I was about to get a good look at them. It was pitch black. Screams could be heard which made chills sweep throughout my body. It was coming from Mom and Lily's direction!

"Mom! Lily!" I yelled.

There was a dead silence. Then, from out of the darkness came a whispering growl echoed through the hospital. When the light flashed back on, two zombies stood where my mom and sister were. They rushed at me, and right before the one of the left opened it's jaws, I woke up.

Melvin was still asleep beside me. I figured that I woke up on my own, but I didn't. Something made me come out of that dream. It sounded like something dragging it's feet across the floor. The moon illuminated everything in the store, and against the wall behind the counter, a shadow of a person moved through the store. I carefully got up on my knees and peaked over the counter. A zombie was on the other side! It didn't see us, and probably had no clue that me and the boy were nearby. Melvin rolled over and moaned. I swiftly covered Melvin's mouth with the palm of my hand. His eyes snapped open. I put my index finger up to my lips to signal him to 'be quiet' . He nodded his head. The zombie turned around quickly. I watched him trying to locate the noise, but it was heading towards the bathrooms on the opposite end of the store. I took my hand off of the boy's mouth to look in my backpack. I felt around for my knife, but all I felt was the hamburger patties, and a Sprite bottle. The zombie came back from the bathrooms and was in the main section of the store. It was coming closer to us. When my fingers went over a sharp metal object, I knew that I had found my knife. I pulled it out slowly. Melvin was so scared that he was shaking.

I yelled as I jumped over the counter and plunged the full blade of the knife all the way into the zombie's forehead. Two more zombies seemed to come out of nowhere and ran straight through the glass, front doors. POP! POP! Bullitt shots rang out. I tripped over my own two feet and fell to the ground. The two zombies were on the ground with me except _they _were dead. Melvin ran over to me. He must have thought that I was shot.

"Where did that come from?" he asked me.

Just as Melvin said that, two people walked into the doors with their guns pointed at us. Both of them were silhouettes, like in my dream. I got up and raised my hands high into the air. One of the two walked over to the light switched and turned onto the lights. I saw that one of them was a brunette girl in her early twenty's, and the other was a short, black haired boy about the same age. They wore tattered clothing and looked like they hadn't eaten in a couple of days.

"Have you been bitten?" the girl asked us, but she was looking at me.

I got a frog in my throat, and forced out, "No." I spoke Melvin(who was almost in tears by this point) and myself.

"Good. Do you two got names?" the boy asked us.

"My name is Ben and this is Melvin. We are traveling north together." I said.

"So are we. I'm John, and this is my sister, Emily."

It was the break of dawn and the sky to the east had a bright orange. Me and Melvin got out of John and Emily's way so that they could raid the store and put their stolen goods into a couple of knapsacks. I could tell that they still did not trust us yet. For all they knew, we could have been starving and rob them or kill them. So they had a reason not to trust us. Without saying a word, they headed out of the gas station and didn't look back. The girl, Emily, stopped right outside of the door and lowered her head. John turned around to her. He was talking to her, but through the doors, it all sounded muffled. She turned to look at us. I knew exactly what she was thinking. Melvin was smiling. John and Emily walked back into the store and sighed.

"Do you want to come with us? There aren't many normal people around, and you know what they say: 'The more the merrier.'" John said.

"Ya, sure!" Melvin yelled.

I didn't object to that idea. All of us went out of the gas station and down the highway, not fully knowing what awaited us.


	6. Edison Has a Pastry Factory!

It was noontime on the highway. Thick, green forest to the left of the road, and a steep slope on the right. John sat a road map on the hood of a car, and studied it thoroughly. The car had a busted window on the driver's side which was probably from a zombie breaking in it to reach the driver's face. I stood still, looking up and down the highway just in case any puppet of the undead came over to give us a visit. Melvin stood beside me and watched Emily and John fly solo. They seemed to do perfectly fine on their own.

"Hey, Ben, come over here and look at this!" John said.

I jogged over to them and stared at the map. "What's the matter?" I asked.

"It's this." He was pointing to I-95. "I wasn't thinking about it, but it's a big open area that way. It'll be that way for many miles. We can make a rest stop in Edison, and continue up north to New York."

"All right."

Emily looked as if she was about to say something. It took her a while until she finally spoke in almost a whisper. "But then,…once we reach New York City,…me and John will have to leave you guys.

Melvin's eyes widened. "Leave? We just met! I want you'll to stay longer."

Emily got down on one knee, and put her hands on his shoulders. "It'll be okay, Melvin. I promise. We might meet again some day. We might meet when there are no zombies around, and everyone is smiling.

"Maybe." Melvin responded.

The key to the car was gone, so we had to start off again down the road. I thought of Lily and my mom the whole time. Hoping that the dream I had the night before was just a nightmare, and not reality.

We hit the interstate in a matter of no time. Melvin carried our backpack while I carried a rifle we had found right after we left the gas station. John and Emily dashed under an overpass, so Melvin and me followed. I searched the horizon for any zombie, but I still couldn't find anything.

"Why are we running?" I asked.

"…I'm not sure. I just had a bad feeling." John said.

Emily sighed. "Don't scare us like that!"

"Fine, but when my feelings are right, something happens, and you'll don't listen to me-" John's had a scared expression on his face as he watched over my shoulder. "Take cover!"

All of us jumped in the back of a brand new, black minivan. The windows were tinted so I felt safe. I watched outside, as a couple of zombies sprinted through the overpass. One of them stopped, and listened for anybody. All of us stayed perfectly quiet. _I could've taken those two down with my rifle. Why hide?_ I thought to myself. Then I squinted my eyes and saw about ten zombies come out of nowhere. All of them were heading our way. A few of the zombies dragged their feet toward us, so the rest of them followed. I looked to see what everyone else was up to, when I saw John hop in the driver's seat. It took me a second or two to figure out that the keys were still in the ignition! I smiled for a split second, and got in the backseat to buckle myself in. Melvin did the same.

The engine sputtered for a moment, until it finally turned on. Everyone in the minivan cheered as we sped away from the hoard of zombies. BUMP! BUMP! We ran over some zombies in the process, but John was able to regain control over the vehicle quickly.

All of us traveled along the highway for an hour and a half until we saw a second zombie swarm. The sun was just about to set so we had to get to Edison by nightfall. Emily peaked over to see how much gas was still in the minivan while John kept an eye out for any more zombies. The gauge was nearly empty.

I was confident t we would get to our next destination in time. I thought that _before _we saw a large, male zombie pop out from behind a flipped transfer truck. The fat zombie (that stood about 6 feet tall, and had to weigh around 280 at the least) charged the minivan. John tried to swerve out of the way, but it was too late. The minivan started to drift towards the zombie. He slammed into the side of our vehicle, and made us tumble and roll into the grass median. Melvin screamed the whole time, while everyone else gripped their hands onto something nearby. The rolling stopped. Me, John, and Emily crawled out of the shattered windows. I helped Melvin out of the minivan, but he was fine except for a small cut or two above his eye. The fat zombie's guts were painted on the side of the van. The zombie himself, was dead ten metes behind us.

"Come on, we have to keep moving!" Emily yelled as she held her arm which was bleeding.

"Emily, are you okay?" I asked.

"It's nothing. Let's just keep moving."

I got back inside of the minivan to look for our bags, but the food had been crushed, and spread out all over the place. There was no time to get all of that stuff, so I just got my rifle and John's rifle.

Everyone hurried down the highway for 10 minutes, when Melvin yelled out from on top of a hill that he could see streetlights in the distance. I ran up the hill to see if it was true, and it was. At the bottom of the hill, another half hour, was the town of Edison! I had the motivation to race down the road to where I hoped that healthy survivors were waiting for us. Everyone else followed me, hoping that zombies weren't behind us.

We arrived right outside of the city in no time. The houses seemed to be devoid of life, and the streets were silent. I found a white, two story house that we could sleep in for the night. John kicked down the door and observed the different rooms. He signaled for me and Melvin to go search one side of the house while him and his sister go searched the opposite side. The wooden floor squeaked with every step, so a zombie couldn't sneak attack us.

After checking the bathroom, two bedrooms and the upstairs, everything seemed clear. Untouched by zombies and humans. Melvin and me met back up with John and Emily in the living room to discuss what we all saw. They saw a kitchen, but it had already been raided. We could tell that each of us were hungry.

"I'll go out and see what they have here. It won't be safe if we all go at once." I said to them .

"The bigger the cities get, the more zombies there will be. Are you sure about this?" Emily asked calmly.

"Sure, it will be fine. Just in case I don't come back in the next hour or so, keep on high alert, and pronounce me dead." I said boldly as I stepped out of the front door with my rifle ready to fire.

My heart started to beat faster and faster. The silence made me feel like the undead were waiting to catch me off guard, and eat my flesh. I took deep breathes as I jogged down the empty street. The only light was a streetlamp up ahead. I went around it. The intersection ahead had a supermarket. Perfect. The only noise I heard came from the sound of my shoes hitting the sidewalk. I hid behind a car, and dashed across the intersection ( making sure to look both ways). The supermarket was calling my name until…out of the corner of my eye…I saw something. Not a zombie, or a living human being, but something better. Pete's Pastry Factory sat right across the supermarket! My mouth started to water. But when I peaked in the windows, I saw the shadows of five zombies eating a guy. I gulped and held my breath. I wasn't going to leave Pete's Pastry Factory and not see what was inside.

"Well, Ben, it's time to show them what you're made of." I whispered to myself before swiftly opening the door to my favorite restaurant in the world.


End file.
